Selling Websites - Top 10 Tips For a Successful Sale At the Highest Price

Want to sell your site? Here's a quick guide. Please feel free to ask any questions below and we'll do our best to help (you need to register first)

1. Get your ducks in a row: Buyers like to see all your traffic stats preferably going back a year. It would be useful to have a spreadsheet with all revenue and costs neatly broken down month by month. Being prepared with that information will save you time in the long run. You might want to also have a Non Disclosure Agreement ready (here's one free NDA you can amend with your details) to send to buyers. Other legal stuff.

2. Think about how you're going to present your information. Will it be a professional looking pdf or will you be making it available within a password protected folder on your site? Both have their advantages, eliminate a lot of back and forthing between the parties and can be restricted to only those buyers whom you've approved/who've signed your NDA. Graphs and charts make it easier to grab your buyers' attention.

3. Do a spring clean: You can remove non-working scripts, forms and pages, tidy up design issues etc. Stored some personal photos on the site? Remove them. Having a custom 404, favicon, .htaccess file with a redirect between the www and non-www versions of your site gives the appearance that you dot your Is and cross your Ts.

4. Do a due diligence dummy run. What would you want to check if you were buying the business? Ask a friend to help if you need a neutral third-party's view. Fix anything that looks odd and might raise concerns.

5. Check your legal position: Do you own everything from the domain name to the copyright on the content? Are there any pending disputes? If, yes, try and resolve them before the sale rather than having to disclose them to buyers and putting them off.

6. Decide where you are going to sell your site. For higher value businesses it may be worth talking to a broker. For others, you may want to consider auction sites like Digital Point and Flippa.

7. If you decide to go for an auction format, plan ahead before you list. Think about how you can drum up publicity for your auction once it hits the road; about how you can drive prospective buyers to your auction. Some sellers list in multiple locations and point all buyers to the preferred auction site to keep the bidding all together.

8. Word your listing "title" and "description" with the utmost care. It's a sales document. Keep it crisp, informative, honest. Disclose only what you feel comfortable disclosing in public. The rest you can disclose only to only those parties who've signed the NDA.

9. Clear your diary. Buyers will have lots of questions and will require you to dig out information that you didn't think anyone would ever need. It takes a lot of time. Be patient, be professional, answer questions politely and promptly.

10. Once you've found your buyer insist on a contract and insist on a safe transaction, not via Paypal. He may not be willing to pay you first and take delivery of your site later. If so, use a reputable escrow company that you've both agreed on. He'll send funds to the escrow, the escrow will advise you of receipt, you can then hand over the site and the escrow will remit the funds to your account.

People are understandably concerned when selling their first site. But it doesn't need to be stressful. Need assistance? Ask us here - you don't need to disclose the site or any confidential information.

Last edited by Kay; 14 February 2014 at 8:11 pm.
Reason: To remove obsolete links

Some good tips. I like the idea of plotting revenue, traffic and other key metrics on a graph. This could also be extrapolated to show hypothetical earnings over the next couple of years based on the current trajectory. This will help the buyer understand the potential of the site and alleviate thoughts associated with the risk they are taking on.

It's amazing how much of difference a good graph makes. I've also found it useful when sellers have provided me data like Adsense CSVs in spreadsheet format. It allows me to create an EPC column, for example, and compile my own graphs to better grasp the metrics and trends.

If you've decided to sell, hold off from making any major changes. Don't change WHOIS, don't redeisgn the site or change monetising methods, don't move to a new server/new host, don't change your site navigation/titles/metas. Buyers are always wary of recent changes and the real reason behind why they were done.

The one change that doesn't seem to impact adversely is adding Google Analytics code if you don't already have it.

If your site has been discussed in old or new media, endorsed by a Who's Who (preferably freely, not via affiliate program), has a lot of fan fare... pulling that out into the mix for your presentation can give a glimpse of what the market and audience has to say about your web-business.

This will NOT hold more weight than stats and facts, but if you were buying a small diner, would you like to know that the regulars think of that diner as a second home, that the local papers have all featured short articles about that diner, that it won a Friendliest Service award 4 years ago? This kind of info doesn't make its way into the metrics... but it can be valuable insight for the buyer and good additional fuel for your sales proposal.

Just don't hinge on it too much. The numbers still need to 'be there'. All the rave reviews won't close the deal if the numbers don't add up.